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This from thoughtleader.co.za:
As a little boy, I witnessed my first live sports encounter from the veranda of our humble home in Sada (Hewu). Across the road, and a further 50 or so metres from there, was the rugby field that was home to the Wallabies Rugby Club. The field was hard – pure ground – without a blade of grass. The field was marked using a spade – you just hit the ground hard enough to break the soil – and you do that for all the lines applicable to rugby field configurations. Yes, the field was that hard, and NO, the lines were not straight. But a game of rugby was played.
The home team (Wallabies) wore black and white stripes for their jerseys. The shorts were black. The socks were a medley of combinations. If you were good enough, you were old enough. I saw some lighties play as I did men who would have passed as my father. The crowd that gathered occupied old car tyres or upside-down buckets as seats, otherwise they simply stood along as the game played itself out. The poles held their H-formation, but barely. They slanted precariously and the crossbar could have given way at any time. There was no padding against them and any hard contact with the poles would have caused injury of serious proportions. Not only that, the poles would have to be reconstructed and that would have delayed the game. To boot, there was no medic pitch-side.
This was a social scene. The community came out in numbers and the Wallabies had support.
This game was played over 25 years ago. It was the only game I ever witnessed on this field. Now, the field plays host to a corrugated iron church. If not a church, then homes made of the same substance or mud. Weeds have taken over where there is no immovable property and the Wallabies have long been defunct. Simply, there is no physical memory of the field or the team.
Full story here:
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